Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1875 — Tarring Fences and Trees. [ARTICLE]

Tarring Fences and Trees.

We note that the old controversy about tarring or painting shingles-and fences is loping revived again, on the principle, vte suppose, thatfas an old generation passes away the new one wants to learn wholly for itself what it wants to know. It ought, however, to be. generally known, by this time, that not moisture only, but heat and moisture, either or both, are the agents in the decay of woody matter. Most writers seem to think it is moisture alone, and hence all that is required is to coat the wood with some substance that will keep the water out. To be sure, they know that heat, when it is up to what we know as the burning point, will destroy wood, but they seem to forget that even when not burning heat is destructive only in a less degree. Any black substance, therefore, which attracts heat, though, it may keep out the other destructive element, water, adds to the destructive%gencies at work on the wood, and should be avoided wherever duration is an object. It needs no these laws, however, to know that tar or any black substance tends to rot wood away much faster than wood that has had nothing at all done to it. A fence tarred and exposed to the full sun, as any observer knows, soon crumbles away. In a few years the wood is like an overdone pie-criist. And then all know liow long a mere whitewashed fence lasts. Yet there is no preservative character of ■ much account in lime. Every ram goes through it into the wood, but it is the white color which rather turns away the heat than attracts it, which is in, that case the great agent which preserves it so long: In all discussions as to the preservation of wood by paints or coatings, therefore, we see that the colofjof thg washes or paitfls is an important point in the argument. As fq£ tar, it is the very

! worst tbing that could be used whqrr tlierfe is exposure to the sun. Under ; ground, or where there is no heat for it to attract of consequence, it is another matter, and does possess more or less preservative power.—Germantown Telegraph.